


with my hand in the hive and the sun in my eyes

by getmean



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - 1980s, Established Relationship, Fluff, Holidays, M/M, Post Vietnam War, aftermath of war, aka snafu and gene take paris only they're middle aged and in love, but like only slightly.. this isn't an angsty fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-26 01:03:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19757398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getmean/pseuds/getmean
Summary: They’re vacationing in Paris, which feels just as ridiculous and surreal as it sounds. It’d been a spur of the moment decision, a decision made in the small hours of the morning, after a certain amount of alcohol and a certain amount of bemoaning the coming month.





	with my hand in the hive and the sun in my eyes

**Author's Note:**

> so someone sent me a prompt based on those gay pics of joe and rami in paris together! here it is

The rattling of cups is what makes Eugene turn in his seat, the flimsy little metal folding chair creaking under his weight as he twists, clutching the back as his eyes land on the source of the unsteady racket. Snafu, having gone inside to fetch their coffees as part of his unofficial role as the mouthpiece of their trip, carrying a laden tray over the disinterested heads of the other patrons around them. His face is a picture, and Eugene can’t help but laugh at it even as he rises in his seat to meet Snafu halfway, taking the tray easily from him as his expression morphs from tight panic into amusement with a roll of his eyes.

“Hands ain’t what they used to be.” He quips, waiting for Eugene to set the tray down on the little bistro table between them before he sits. Eugene eyes the slight waver that his left hand has; has had since the war, and frowns. 

“You should’ve asked for help.” He says, unloading the tray onto the table as he speaks. Black coffee, fruit, pastries. They ring the ashtray, sat triumphant in the centre with Eugene’s recently abandoned cigarette smoking away in it. “That’s what the servers are there for.”

“The day I need some French kid to run my coffee to my table is the day you can put me in the ground,” Snafu says, conversationally, eyes downcast as he picks over the little bowl of sugar cubes on the table. He pops one in his mouth, eyes darting up playfully as Eugene shakes his head in exasperation.

“Will you stop telling me about the various ways I’ll know you’re dead?” He asks, ignoring Snafu’s sly nudge of the bowl his way. His cheeks hollow, sucking on the sugar, making him look far more impish than usual.

“Will you stop coddling me?” He asks, mumbled around the lump of sugar, and nudges the bowl closer again. “I know it’s hard now that you’re becoming your mother.” He props his chin on his hand, effortlessly beautiful, and smirks. 

Eugene decides to be the bigger man, and doesn’t rise to the bait, no matter how much he’d like to. And he knows Snafu knows that; can see it in the victorious little edge to his smirk as he glances away, off down the boulevard, the buildings all white and pale pastel like Jordan almonds, the street hazy in the heat rising up from it. 

They’re vacationing in Paris, which feels just as ridiculous and surreal as it sounds. It’d been a spur of the moment decision, a decision made in the small hours of the morning, after a certain amount of alcohol and a certain amount of bemoaning the coming month. June, a non-month, a boring month, full of nothing but work and responsibilities and sitting together in exhausted silence in front of the television with the fan on high. Hot, but with no sense of fun in it. Snafu had gotten a week off work. Eugene had too; wrangled it out of his boss with the promise of bringing him back something from his trip. And now here they are; sitting on the sidewalk with the morning sun on their backs, drinking hot, pleasantly bitter coffee, and eating pastries so fresh they practically melt in Eugene’s mouth when he takes a bite. 

It’s a small, quiet place; just a few steps from the front door of their hotel, and the coffee is good and the food better. They’ve been stopping off for breakfast every day of the week so far; so much so that the waitstaff seem to have begun to take an odd shine to Snafu. It’s the French fluency, Eugene is sure, as they still regard _him_ with that very French mixture of contempt and puzzlement whenever he attempts to order. Like Snafu is just French enough to avoid it, and Eugene then gets the brunt of their distaste for Americans. He can’t say he blames them. He can’t say he cares, either, as watching Snafu chatter away in his syrupy French is more than enough to make not being able to order his own coffee worth it. 

Snafu’s foot nudges his under the table, pulling Eugene from his thoughts; he glances up from where he was methodically tearing his croissant into buttery little strips, and Snafu winks at him, a smile playing around his mouth. “You’re pickin’ my bad habits up.” He murmurs, hand curled sweetly under his chin as he flicks his eyes down to Eugene’s plate. “You always tell me off for playin’ with my food.”

Eugene tuts, sticking his thumb into his mouth to suck the grease from it as he reaches for a napkin. “What you do is beyond playin’.” A breeze stirs the tablecloths, sending a woman’s broad brimmed hat skimming across the cobbles; Snafu watches it go disinterestedly, eyes heavy lidded when they inch back to Eugene’s face. 

“Tastes better.” He says, making no effort to argue, and his foot nudges up against Eugene’s again, and then it’s _his_ turn to smile and glance away. “You look good.” Snafu says, voice low, and when Eugene glances back he’s still staring; chin on his knuckles as he ashes his cigarette absently into the ashtray between them. “You’re gettin’ some good sleep for once.” 

It’s not a question, but Eugene shrugs in response anyway, settling back in his seat as he tips his head away, exhaling smoke. “’S cooler here.” He says, lamely, like the humid heat in Louisiana is what keeps him restless and plagued with frequent nightmares. He’s not lying, not in so many words; the summers down south always do trigger something in him. Far too close to those fetid, never-ending summer days in Vietnam, where you’d be sweating before the sun even came up, where they all longed for the relief of a summer storm just to cut the humid air in two. But it’s not the heat’s fault and Snafu knows it; Eugene can see it in the minute raise of his eyebrows as he tilts his face, smoke streaming from his nostrils. “Really, Snaf.”

Snafu had brought back that tremor in his hands from Vietnam. Brought back that and a chewed up bubblegum-like mass of scar tissue on his shoulder; a .308 winchester its companion, strung around Snafu’s neck like some fucked up talisman. Eugene had brought back nightmares, paranoia; a three inch piece of metal lodged so deep into his knee that he’d walked around on it for three years before he’d realised it was the source of his pain. Unlike Snafu he hadn’t kept his would-be killer, but the years of sharp metal grinding deep into all the bits and pieces of his kneecap had done its own lasting damage. He stretches his leg out under the little table, knees bumping up against Snafu’s as he tests the stiffness in it. 

“Either way,” Snafu is saying, some background narration to Eugene’s slip back into the past. He’s prone to them; it doesn’t seem like something that’s going away any time soon. Snafu takes a drink of his coffee, dark curls tousled in another gust of wind. “I like seein’ you sleepin’ good.”

Eugene supposes it’s just that simple. Snafu likes seeing him sleeping well; there’s no pressure put on that same ease of sleeping happening back home, or a pressure to explain himself away and try to dig down deep into the _why’s_ and the _how’s_ of how the war has decided to manifest itself in him. Sometimes Eugene thinks it must be very easy to be Snafu, even though he knows better, even though he knows it’s a thing Snafu has painstakingly taught himself to exude. 

For now he settles with his coffee and his pastries and the warm love ever-present and blooming in his chest. It’s enough, somehow. Eugene feels oddly disconnected from the worries that always plague him at home; like he’s regarding them through a thin gauzy screen. They make sense still, but the worries don’t tug on him like they usually do. He finds himself able to shake them off, to dive back into the guidebook which Snafu pulls from his back pocket, to while away their breakfast thumbing through it, deciding which tourist adventure they were going to embark on that day. The sun is on the nape of his neck, warm, like a comforting touch, and Snafu is browned by the sunshine, curls tossed wild from their slow rise from bed to breakfast with no stop in between to tame it. The gold hoop in his ear winks in the sunlight, and Eugene sits back in the wobbly little chair he’s perched in, watching him gesticulate with his cigarette as he attempts to convince Eugene towards doing what _he_ wants to do with their day, as though he doesn’t know that he’d won the argument before he’d even began. Eugene has been especially indulgent on this holiday, bending to Snafu’s every flight of fancy because it’s enough to see him happy and animated and enjoying himself. Worth far more than squabbling because Snafu doesn’t want to do the Eiffel Tower because of his fear of heights. 

“So where d’you wanna go?” Eugene asks, interrupting Snafu counting off on his fingers just how many people he _personally_ knows who’ve died at the hands of very tall objects and the gravity that comes with them. 

Snafu props his ankle on his knee, leaning back in his chair as he crushes his cigarette butt out in the tray between them. “The Louvre.” He announces, hand falling to his ankle where his thumb strokes absently over the knobbly bone there. “I wanna see the Mona Lisa. Wanna see what all the fuss is about.”

Eugene shrugs. “Okay.” He says, and grins at the way Snafu’s eyes light up. “Fine, we’ll see what all the fuss is about, though I think you’re the only person in the world _wanting_ to be let down by it.” 

“It’s not that I _want_ it,” Snafu begins, leaning forward over the table, and Eugene just smiles, chin propped on his hand as Snafu chatters away, sweet and excited in the morning sun, effortlessly handsome against the backdrop of those candied houses.

In a way, Eugene hopes their week will never end. It’s a fleeting, childish thought, but then Snafu’s fingers curl around his own; the hand with his cigarette, the one laid on the table as he was watching, distracted, and the thought sharpens, clarifies. _I wish this never has to come to an end_ , the thinks, hopelessly, staring first at their touching hands, and then at the disinterested faces around them. Snafu hasn’t seemed to to notice; his fingers squeeze Eugene’s just slightly as he brings the one-sided conversation back around to victims of heights, but he smiles when Eugene squeezes back, a distracted, warm thing that sends a flutter of pleased affection through Eugene. They’re acting just like everyone else, he realises. Holding hands over coffee in the sun, talking about stupid shit, just like any other couple. 

Then Snafu draws his hand away to light a cigarette and Eugene lets him go, palm and fingers tingling with their casual touch long after they’ve both finished their breakfast, and after Snafu has chatted his way through paying the bill in his sweet, accented French. 

“I love you,” Eugene mutters, swaying into him as they both make the way back down the street to their hotel, the busy street forcing them close; shoulder to shoulder. Eugene touches his hand to the small of Snafu’s back, alight with the smile that Snafu levels him with. 

“What’s got into you?” He asks, and Eugene shrugs, ducking his head.

“Nothin’.” 

———

They go to The Louvre, because Eugene has never got into the habit of denying Snafu what he wants, and because the day is promised to be a hot one and The Louvre is promised to be air conditioned. It is; though they arrive near enough to lunchtime that it means another little French café, another cup of coffee and a cigarette, with a sandwich to replace the pastries this time. 

“You ever thought monotony’d be nice?” Eugene asks, leaned back in his seat, eyes on the wispy clouds above them as he listens to Snafu light a cigarette before leaning back himself. The creak of the old metal chair, then his sigh.

“Ain’t monotony boring?” He asks, and Eugene makes a thoughtful noise in response. “What’s the word for a good monotony?”

It’s a rhetorical question so Eugene doesn’t answer out loud, and then the waiter brings their check and prompts Snafu into a drawling, languorous conversation, so the topic is abandoned. Eugene watches Snafu scrawl his signature on the check, the awkward crook of his wrist as he writes, their knees bumping together under the table, and thinks to himself _the word’s happiness_.

The Louvre is near chilly after the drowsy warmth from under the canopies that ringed that café they’d eaten lunch in. Heat that you can smell; hot plastic and tarmac, the freezer fans running on high. Between the A/C and the sweeping marble floors, Eugene finds himself struck a little by the drop in temperature, by the change in atmosphere. The inside is a hushed, echoing place; shoes tapping on the shiny floor, the sound of a murmured conversation as he and Snafu pace through the rooms. A far cry from the bustle and sound of outside, of traffic noises and shrieking children and the hubbub of buses of teenage tourists. 

“It’s emptier than I’d thought it’d be.” Snafu says, leaning in close as they pause at the top of a long flight of stairs, in front of a winged statue made of marble that somehow looks softer than skin. 

“Rented out the place for you.” Eugene murmurs back, tearing his eyes from the statue to watch a smile spread across Snafu’s handsome, sun-kissed face. He grins too, nudging an elbow into Snafu’s side just as a child wailing quietly in a pushchair goes by them and Snafu’s eyes narrow.

“Didn’t do a very good job.” He says, teasing, and Eugene sways into his side, overcome with affection as Snafu ducks his head with a snort, and Eugene presses his nose to the curling hair behind his ear. 

“Ain’t it enough that I tried?” He asks, breathed quiet into Snafu’s ear.

Snafu’s expression is affectionate, sardonic. “Don’t look like you did.” The gold hoop in his ear catches the bright lights above them as Eugene rakes his fingers through his curls, and he grins. He’s greying at the temples now; early, but inexorable. Eugene finds himself helplessly attracted to it. 

“You got me.” He mutters, and they detach from the statue, headless and delicately sad, to the pull of the next room.

They wander until Eugene’s knee starts to hurt, the two of them becoming slowly overloaded by the sheer volume of _history_ pressing in on all sides. Museum fatigue, Eugene has heard it called and thinks is quite apt, eyes sliding over another biblical scene as Snafu tugs at his wrist. Jesus, misery etched into every pale inch of his thin face, blood like a bloom on his hands, his feet. Blasphemously, Eugene thinks, _you don’t know the half of it, bud._

They sit. Snafu pulls a bottle of water from the backpack Eugene had insisted on bringing, and hands it to him wordlessly. He waits for Eugene to drink from it before he relaxes; sags against Eugene’s side, smelling of sunshine and hotel soap as they turn their attention to the vast painting their bench has been placed in front of. 

Chaos. Eugene can almost feel the sea air, that charged, electric feel of the world before a storm. The stench of bodies and the sheer desperation and despair as the black clouds and steely sea roil closer. Even the colour of the dead is uncomfortably accurate, and Eugene glances away, down at the water bottle in his hands. He can practically hear the creak of that ill-made raft buckling beneath the weight of all those crazed, doomed men. He wonders just why it feels so familiar. 

As if sensing his discomfort, Snafu rests his head on Eugene’s shoulder and says, “I saw this movie once. French.” And Eugene hums, eager for the distraction, so Snafu continues. “The lot of them runnin’ like hell through the place.” He gestures, meaning the room, the gallery. 

Eugene frowns at the grisly scene in front of them. “Being chased?”

He feels Snafu shrug. “Nah.” He says, voice distant. “For the fun of it, I guess. Said an American did it in nine somethin’ minutes, and wanted to kill some time.” He shrugs again, moving slightly away as Eugene twists to look at him, puzzled.

“Did they beat it?”

Snafu grins. “Yeah. I think so.”

Eugene rubs at his knee, eyes straying from Snafu’s face to the wide expanse of gallery he can see through the huge archway. “Wanna try it?” He asks, and watches as Snafu’s grin turns playful, wicked. 

“Yeah,” He mutters, cosying up next to Eugene once more. “Go on. I think we still got it in us.”

They both make no move to test that, instead turning their attention back to that desperate, frightening painting before them, Snafu’s trembling hand laid on Eugene’s aching knee.

———

French grocery markets all smell the same; somewhere at the intersection of cheese and linoleum and cardboard. It’s a discovery that, since Eugene had made it, has been hard to ignore every time he and Snafu find themselves in one.

“They have horse here.” Snafu mumbles, bent to peer through the glass of the deli counter at the dried meats there. He points, glancing up at the disinterested man standing behind it. “Le canard?”

Eugene sniffs. Again, that warm, electric fridge fan smell. “I’m gonna go grab some wine.”

They buy bread, cheese, butter; things to pick at, a punnet of raspberries, two bottles of white wine. Snafu ducks into a tabac on the way for more of those French cigarettes he likes, the ones that smell so rich and aromatic, and then they’re wandering down through the streets toward the Seine; winding snake-like through the city and already lit up with the colours of the early sunset. It’s late; the day finally having cooled enough to allow Eugene an appetite, and the streets are teeming with people all brought out of their homes by the easing temperature. Eugene decides he loves Paris in the evening, even if his feet are aching from walking all day, even if his knee is so sore that Snafu has to slow his pace to match him. It feels alive in a way that reminds him of New Orleans: once the heat of the day has dissipated and the French Quarter comes alive with all the lights and colours and noise of the night. 

He and Snafu aren’t the only couple to have had the good idea for a picnic dinner down on the banks of the river, and they skirt all the laid out picnic blankets and lounging men and women until they find a quieter spot; closer to the water, and cooler. They’d neglected to bring a blanket so Eugene perches on the concrete wall that borders the banks, still warmed from the sun, as he watches Snafu unpack their haul of food. 

“You never told me if she disappointed you.” Eugene says, rubbing his thumb into the side of his knee as he stretches it out on the warm wall with a grunt. “Mona Lisa, I mean.”

Snafu joins him, plucking the unlit cigarette from his mouth to tuck behind his ear before reaching for his penknife. He shrugs, making short work of the cork in the first bottle of wine as he says, “’S a bit of somethin’ of nothin’.”

Eugene snorts, a smile playing on his mouth as he takes the plastic cup of wine that Snafu offers him. “Really.” He says, and Snafu holds his cup aloft, something slyly amused in the line of his mouth that makes Eugene laugh. 

“To her.” He says, and brings his cup to Eugene’s, who is so caught up in how Snafu looks by all the colours of the sunset that he’s slow to react, raising his wine to take a drink as he tears his eyes away from him. It’s hard work, to look away from something so beautiful; Snafu’s curls a halo around his head, the ends touched gold by the setting sun, his smile toothy, pleased. Happy. It’s easy to spot on him, easier than the other emotions he manages to keep locked so well away. It’s there in the crinkle of his eyes, the curve of his full, generous mouth, a sense of lightness about his whole being. The river flows by beneath their feet, a slow moving watercolour painting of the sky above them. Eugene wishes he could freeze this moment, wishes they could stay just like this: sundrunk and happy and aching from their long day out but having a good time despite it. With Snafu carving off little rounds of dried sausage with his penknife and popping them into his mouth right from the blade, with the briny taste of olives on his tongue and the organic, brackish smell of the river in his nose, half obscured by the summertime bloom of lilies and palms drifting downstream. They pick at the cheeses, eating fresh bread slathered in thick, salty butter as they watch the sky turn pink over the slow moving river.

“You think my boss would notice if I never came back?” Snafu asks, then, as if he can read Eugene’s mind. He’s gazing off across the Seine, chewing thoughtfully as his hand drifts back to the pot of olives by his knee. “You think our landlord would?”

Eugene snorts. “That man would chase us to China for the month’s rent.” Snafu grins, gaze swinging back around to Eugene, who lets himself get caught up in it. It’s been so long with Snafu that he doesn’t get that rabbit in the headlights feeling that he’d used to when they were young. Instead it’s a slow creep, a sticky warm kind of affection, and Eugene goes easily when Snafu hooks a finger in his shirt collar and pulls him in for a kiss. He tastes like wine, like olives, and his hand trembles just ever so slightly as he brushes his knuckles over Eugene’s cheekbone. 

“Maybe we should try anyway.” He says, leaning back, hand dropping to his plastic cup of wine. The last vestiges of sunlight cling to his profile, the cool blue evening chasing them away to the high ground that is his cheekbones, his brow, the tip of his sweet wedge of a nose. Briefly, crazily, Eugene lets himself imagine it. The two of them getting to do this every day, getting to start fresh someplace that has no memories attached to it, nothing to remind them of what they had been through. Snafu teaching him French in the evenings, curled up on the sofa in some drafty Parisian apartment overlooking the Seine. One of those candied houses from the street near their hotel. Shopping together in their local grocery shop, the one that smells like all the rest. Carving out a space for themselves.

The water laps at the banks of the river, the gentle noise bringing Eugene back into the present just as Snafu leans over to top off his wine. They have two days left in France, before their lives go back to normal. Somehow, the thought isn’t completely horrible. Is Snafu teaching him French in some drafty apartment here any different than their drafty little place back in New Orleans?

“Let’s see the Eiffel Tower before we go.” Eugene says, just to to set Snafu off again, to have him carry Eugene away from thoughts of what could be. It works perfectly: he sets his drink aside, already edging the cigarette from behind his ear to light it.

“Do you want to be dead?” He asks, the flame of his lighter illuminating his face for a second. His eyes flick up. “Do you want _me_ to be dead?”

Eugene just grins, as indulgent as ever, and sits back to watch the evening darken around them, wrapped up in his love for Snafu; the only thing that promises to never dull over time. That Parisian apartment? He’s sure the pipes will freeze over winter. Those candied houses? A fortune, for nothing. Even the Seine stinks on hot days. Better to have the home he knows, the man he loves, than some fantasy life. 

Snafu eases his thumb over the bony jut of Eugene’s aching knee, absently, still talking, and Eugene smiles, and covers his poor hand with his own.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! please forgive any things i've gotten wrong about paris or the louvre -- it's been YEARS since i've been to either!
> 
> my askbox is always open for prompts over on tumblr :~)
> 
> edit: completely forgot to link this! the movie in which the snafu is talking about is in is [ bande à part](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6B-AZfwIGk), and the painting they're sat in front of is géricault's 'the raft of the medusa'


End file.
